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Smartphone ownership (85%) and home broadband subscriptions (77%) have increased among American adults since 2019 – from 81% and 73% respectively. Though modest, both increases are statistically significant and come at a time when a majority of Americans say the internet has been important to them personally.
Many American households have multiple digital devices – especially smartphones. A third of American households have three or more smartphones, compared with 23% that have three or more desktops, 17% that have three or more tablets and only 7% that have three or more streaming media devices.
If demographic changes are slow, technological changes can be swift. In the new millennium, major technology revolutions have occurred in broadband connectivity, social media use and mobile adoption. All three of them continued, and in some cases accelerated, during Obama’s presidency.
More than two-thirds of Americans owned a smartphone by 2015, six times the ownership levels at the dawn of Obama’s tenure. When Apple released the iPad halfway through Obama’s first term, a mere 3% of Americans owned tablets; nearly half had tablets by the end of 2015.
In the new millennium, major technology revolutions have occurred in broadband connectivity, social media use and mobile adoption. All three of them continued, and in some cases accelerated, during Obama’s presidency.
About a third of people across emerging and developing nations reported owning a smartphone in 2015. Given this sharp upward trend, it is expected that smartphone ownership will continue to grow in these countries and approach the levels seen in advanced economies (a median of 68% in our current survey).
It may seem as if basic or flip phones are a thing of the past, given that 73% of teens have a smartphone. But that still leaves 15% of teens who only have a basic cellphone and 12% who have none at all, and it makes a difference in the way each group communicates, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.
MORE: How having smartphones (or not) shapes the way teens communicate
64% of American adults now own a smartphone of some kind, up from 35% in the spring of 2011. Some Americans are “smartphone-dependent”; that is, they do not have broadband access at home, and have relatively few options for getting online other than their phone.
Microsoft has announced plans to buy the Nokia Phones Division, unifying its hardware and software production. Meanwhile, Apple is set to release its latest batch of iPhones next week, but this time in color. Add in Android’s ongoing challenge to Apple and Blackberry’s recent bid for more smartphone relevance, and the market is brimming with options.
All of this could add to consumer choice, as buyers are snapping up smartphones at a rapid pace. A majority of Americans (56%) now own a smartphone, up from 35% the first time we asked in May 2011. Cell phones in general are now almost ubiquitous – 91% of adults own a cell phone according to our latest survey.
Do you use your smartphone to help monitor your health? According to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life project, one in three cell phone owners (31%) have used their phone to look for health information. In a comparable, national survey conducted two years ago, 17% of cell phone owners had used their phones to look for health advice.
“We continue to see building evidence that people are using these devices to add to their news consumption. People are finding a way to continue to fit more and more news into their day. The more gadgets you have, the more news you tend to get.”
— Amy Mitchell, Deputy Director for the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, quoted in Folio Magazine piece from a panel discussion at Advertising Week.